


Hero

by Suaine



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 10:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8574364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: The Dawn Herald's purpose is to watch and discover.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stellacadente](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacadente/gifts).



> Getting into Vector's head was a fascinating challenge and I hope I've done it justice. Though it doesn't impact the story too much, it's implied that at least two, possibly more, different player characters exist.

The Oroboro had no word for hero.

Vector remembered the concept, handed down from the emperor to grace those who served him exceptionally well, individuals who sacrificed everything for the greater good. They remembered that the word had tasted strange and ashen before, like there was always a lack in it.

They had met the agent in a tumultous time, with a whole galaxy in the balance, and it had taken a while to understand that perhaps service to the greater good and service to the empire were not always the same thing.

Burrowed deep into the soil of Alderaan, the Oroboro knew very little of the empire and less of heroes. The politics and conflicts of the humans and their allies seemed far away and unimportant to the rock and the ice, the trees and the wind. The Oroboro had other worries.

Vector only realized that sorrow when they set foot on Taris for the first time. Taris and Alderaan had that same smell about them, a sharp, toxic note of grief.

"You could come with me," Kaliyo said, her voice high and bright, as if they couldn't smell the vulcano burning underneath, or taste the acid tang of unshed tears. She assembled her rifle with dangerous grace, using more force than necessary to slot the pieces into place. "Lokin isn't exactly good company these days and I know you're not satisfied with waiting. Those bugs in your head, they want you out there."

Vector nodded slightly, their head feeling heavy with the knowledge that her words were true. "We wish to stay, for now. Without the agent, we feel that the future is unclear."

Kaliyo huffed. "That's why I'm going to find her and I will burn down everything that stands in my way." She swallowed and Vector stopped breathing to avoid the surge of her emotions. "I'm not the waiting kind of girl. I've got a team and there's a space for you if you want it."

Vector contorted their face in a fractious smile. They'd practiced, but the expression never lost that note of melancholy and yearning, though perhaps this time around that was acceptable. "We thank you, but it is not yet time. The song is full of questions and the answers are not to be found out there."

Kaliyo rolled her eyes and shouldered her weapon. She looked like they imagined heroes should look, sharp-edged and battle-hardened, with a burning heart and a wounded soul. The greater good. If only Vector knew what that was.

+

The song of Alderaan had always been discordant, unfitting such a lively, beautiful world. Its humans lived their lives with reckless abandon, so devoted to pleasure and politics. They remembered that one Vector Hyllus had thought it refreshing, even admirable. There was a decadence that had given the man a secret thrill.

Now they thought they understood that it was born of an unconscious desperation. The symphony of the force sang a desperate, mournful song for Alderaan's twilight days. The Oroboro knew that Alderaan's beauty could not last.

This was part of the reason for their existence, for parts of the hive that could go far beyond the limits of one single planet. The Oroboro knew that the future demanded a new path and they were willing, as a species, to set upon it, but the hive was so entwined with the caverns, the soil, the very nature of Alderaan, that this needed special deliberation. It needed certainty.

Vector lived an uncertain life.

The agent had been taken. The agent had been killed. She was alone. There were others. It all had grown so very dark, Zakuul's shadow hanging over an entire galaxy.

After Kaliyo had gone, Vector stayed on Alderaan for weeks, submerged in the song - the force. They'd learned interesting things, odd things, terrifying things, but whatever threatened their very way of life, Alderaan's final days had not yet come.

And then there were visitors.

+

The woman was as alive with the song as the man was silent. Her face was a stoic, silent mask where his was friendly and open, yet both hiding their true nature. They came from opposite sides of the war, opposite sides of the force. Vector knew them, if barely. The agent would have smiled to see them again.

Vector did not smile. "Whatever you came to say, make haste. The war follows you like a shadow."

Theron Shan held up his hands. "Whoa there, let's not start on the wrong foot, we only came to talk."

These people were a disturbance in the song, a shrill note of chaos, and Vector had just found a semblance of peace. "Then talk quickly."

"We have a plan," Lana said. "We know how to get her back." Lana smelled of grief, sharp and terrible, an emotion so vast Vector could not truly understand in a being so small, so alone. Then again, she hadn't been alone before all this happened, had she? The agent and Lana had connected in ways Vector were curious about but no longer understood. In this the bond with the nest had never really faded, though they knew of others who'd sated that curiosity thoroughly.

Vector took a step back, then they sat, suddenly not able to control the physical, frail human body without incredible effort. Their hands were shaking. "She's alive," they said, like a prayer, a new, hopeful note in the song. It was only then that they realized Vector Hyllus - the parts of them that were him - had been mourning.

Theron put a hand on their shoulder. He too had lost someone, if the stories were true, though not all of the verses of that song were equally believable. "It's going to be alright, Lana is going to find her."

Vector cocked heir head to the side, blinked up at the SIS agent - and there was still a roiling resentment under their skin for everyone in service to such an institution - and when they spoke their voice was heavy with sorrow. "How can we help?"

+

Theron sent them on missions where no other creature could go, where no single entity could prevail, far away from the true target. Zakuul and the twin monsters that were ravaging the galaxy stayed far behind them, but never quite out of mind.

They got lost in the song, on a planet so old that it felt completely timeless. Any of these worlds, all of them, had a song that whispered its own birth and dying, but this song was a mere echo of itself, unintelligible and ethereal. Vector listened and listened and listened.

Time had little influence there.

They forgot, for a moment, for an age, why they had come. The rumors of a strange power on this old world had not been exaggerated. There were artifacts and ruins that brimmed with the sound of the universe. This could help in galactic struggles; Lana and Theron were rarely wrong about these things.

But all of that faded into a mournful, quiet background hum on the surface of the forgotten world.

+

When they awoke, bursting to the surface of singular consciousness, Vector Hyllus had found a new, unrestrained certainty.

Change was coming, and the agent was at the center of it.

Vector knew that they were meant to follow and all doubt had disappeared. This was their place, their purpose. To fight against the veil of darkness that threatened the galaxy at the side of their hero.

The Oroboro had no word for hero, but Vector was going to teach them the meaning of it.


End file.
